Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Mosul Campaign Day 177, Apr 11, 2017

The grey area in the east along the Tigris River is the Old
City, where the police have been holding down the Islamic State. The bulges in
the middle of the front are where the Golden Division has been making its
advances in recent weeks. Green = Liberated, White = IS Control, Blue = Tigris River. (Nineveh Media Center)

Both the police and Counter Terrorism Forces (CTF) – Golden
Division were at work in west Mosul. On April 10
the Golden Division was fighting in Tanak, Abar, Aruba, and Matahen. That last
neighborhood was declared freed
the day before. On April 11, the unit was said to be clearing Matahen, Yarmouk
and Maghreb. Maghreb was liberated on April
5, and Yarmouk on April
10. These are all areas in the center and western sections of the city,
where the CTF have been making steady advances. The Federal Police and Rapid
Reaction Division on the other hand, have claimed they were pushing towards the
Grand Mosque in the Old City section in the east each day, but in reality they
were not making any serious movement. This was continuously denied over the
last few weeks, but was finally admitted in an announcement
that they re-started their attack upon the Old City. The Federal Police assaulted
three strongpoints of the Islamic State near the Grand Mosque. IS was said
to be retreating from the district, and forcing civilians to go with them as
human shields. The operation against the Old City quickly ground to a halt due
to the dense layout, narrow streets, and tough Islamic State defenses. That
forced a re-think of tactics and strategy. Reports of heavy civilian casualties
caused more delays as well.

Maps released by the government show that the Iraqi forces
are now in control of roughly half of west Mosul. Iraqi propaganda constantly
gives different and contradictory figures however. The latest came from the
Joint Operations Command that claimed
90% of west Mosul had been seized. Unfortunately Iraqi official statements on
such matters are reliably unreliable.

Voice
of America questioned the Iraqi police tactics. A former army officer
mentioned that when the police run into resistance in Mosul they usually call
in heavy shelling to level an area. A police artillery unit seemed to confirm
that saying that it regularly fired up to 200 shells per day. It said that it
used drones to acquire its targets and tried to avoid civilian casualties.
However the fact that people are known to be sheltering inside their homes to
escape the fighting and IS is using civilians as human shields it is highly
unlikely that residents are not being hit by all of the mortars, rockets and
guns being employed.

Civilians remain the major victims of the Mosul campaign. A
Coalition airstrike was blamed
for 3 deaths and 2 wounded. An unidentified air strike killed
another person and injured 8. IS mortar and rocket fire on three neighborhoods
left 9 dead and 25 wounded. The insurgents executed another three people, two
for trying to escape
and at least one child because the father refused to follow orders.

Crime is still major, yet little reported concern in Mosul.
Men in military uniforms robbed
a tire market in west Mosul. Both gangs and members of the security forces have
been accused of looting and stealing in both sides of the city.

The town of Tal Afar to the west of Mosul has been encircled
for months now. Its fate will have to wait until Mosul is freed. That has
greatly frustrated the Hashd who planned on taking the town long ago. It is
still unclear whether they will even be given that task or whether it will be
assigned to the army and police. In the meantime the Hashd regularly take shots
at the Americans for the situation. The latest was when a Hashd spokesman claimed that the
Americans were delaying an attack on Tal Afar so that it could rescue IS
leaders. He also mentioned that Turkey was involved as well. This is common
propaganda, especially from the Iranian backed groups that want to discredit
the Coalition and its role in Iraq.

Ninewa’s governor told
the press that provincial service offices were re-opening in west Mosul. That
included traffic, nationality, civil defense, water, sewage, municipalities,
and electricity. The goal is to clean up the streets first, and then to restore
water and power. East Mosul was freed at the end of January 2017, but there are
no services there yet. The government is barely present in that section of the
city, and it has had problems getting public workers to return to their jobs
because of the security issues. West Mosul is even more dangerous as there is
still fighting going on and it is constantly being hit by IS mortars and
rockets.

Besides the fighting the people of Mosul are facing other hardships.
One is extreme shortages. Many people coming out of the city say that they had
no food for days. There are stories of people eating plants and flour mixed
with water. A new infant emergency section in a hospital reported
that most of its patients were suffering from malnutrition. This was rarely
seen in Iraq before, but the siege of the city has cut off most supplies and
the people still living in insurgent control areas are suffering as a result.

Iraqi traders are attempting to restart
their businesses in Ninewa. A Kurdish businessman said that he was shipping in
goods from Turkey into east Mosul. There are many small businesses and markets
that have re-opened there, and they are desperate for products. Another
entrepreneur told Reuters he’d signed a contract to provide supplies to a
displacement camp in Khazir. One major impediment the firms face is all of the
checkpoints they have to pass through. At each one they have to pay bribes to
members of the security forces. This is common throughout Iraq, but in Ninewa
it is especially difficult because there are so many in and around Mosul
because of the on going battle there.

People were still to move in and out of Mosul and Ninewa in
general. The United Nations counted
320,496 people displaced in the province since the start of the Mosul campaign
in October 2016. The real figure is much higher as many people never registered
or moved within Mosul. Around 5,000 people per day were arriving at Hamam
al-Alil south of Mosul during the 1st week of April. That was down
from 15,000 per day that were showing up at the end of March. The pause in
fighting in sections of the city probably accounted for the dip. Many of the
newly displaced (IDPs) were being sent to the Jadah 5 camp, which is almost at
capacity. At the same time from March 31 to April 10 7,026 IPDs went back to
their homes. The U.N. had a total of 86,298 returns so far. Again many more
were not officially counted.

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com